Missing details: the sanitisation of Tom Waterhouse's Wikipedia page

James Robertson and Melissa Davey

Tom Waterhouse leaves the More Joyous inquiry on Monday. There is no mention of it on his Wiki page.

He claimed vindication in Monday's Racing NSW inquiry, but staff for Tom Waterhouse have sometimes preferred to give the truth a nudge, rather than presume it will prevail on its own steam.

Mr Waterhouse's employees have been sanitising the bookmaker's Wikipedia page, removing references to parliamentary inquiries into the march of sports betting into lounge rooms and even his turn on the Dancing With the Stars program.

Perhaps the most glaring omission, however, is that the More Joyous racing inquiry does not rate a mention on the page.

There is also a warning at the top of the entry.

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"A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject," a disclaimer reads.

"It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view."

Mr Waterhouse said that he has never directly ordered his staff to remove or edit any content from the page.

"I've only asked them to make sure [the content] abides by what is legal," he said.

"While I'm not actually across the page, I know that staff do make changes if there is something defamatory, illegal or not true on there.

"Of course, in those situations, they have to take that [material] down."

He said there was no specific piece of information on the page that he had seen and asked staff to edit or remove and that they did this of their own accord.

Anyone can use Wikipedia and start editing pages of the site. Other users can discuss, dispute or reverse those edits. And Wikipedians have long held suspicious about the Waterhouse page.

"Sounds like it was taken straight from an advertising brochure," wrote user SpencerCollins last September.

He may have been tipped off by the inclusion of such detail as the fact that Mr Waterhouse was a high school prefect and the following, included under the heading "branding".

"Waterhouse invested considerably in marketing and advertising, adopting a distinct style guide comprising of black and white imagery with splashes of aquamarine."

Those edits were made by the user GChinaP.

"He [Waterhouse] asked me to write up something for Wikipedia," Gilbert Chinapen, who works on TomWaterhouse.com, confirmed to Fairfax.

Another user, Angustommiepragnell, made dozens of edits to the page, removing material that was claimed to be defamatory or incorrect, but in fact had been widely reported. The user removed references to Mr Waterhouse's refusal to appear before a parliamentary inquiry into gambling in sport. The phrasing was later changed to "declined an invitation".

Also left out is that Mr Waterhouse was benched by Channel Nine's NRL commentary team in March, following a public backlash against gambling being incorporated into live sport.

References to Waterhouse's father, who did six months' periodic detention after being found guilty of false swearing, were also edited by a user called Suzanne888.

The ongoing omissions and changes prompted one frustrated editor to write: "Waterhouse staff such as Angus Pragnell and Gilbert Chinapen shouldn't be editing/'sanitising' this entry!"

Later edits to the page included the removal of references to Mr Waterhouse's highly enthusiastic but ultimately unsuccessful routines on Dancing With the Stars. He was eliminated in the second round of the show's 2006 season.

It's not the first time changes to Wikipedia pages have been linked back to their subjects.

In August 2007 when John Howard was prime minister, Fairfax reported that staff in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet were caught editing Wikipedia to remove details that might be damaging to the government.

ABC TV's Media Watch then reported that staff at several media organisations, including Fairfax Media, were found editing their own and others' Wikipedia pages, with some edits heaping abuse on rivals.

with Ben Grubb

98 comments

Am I the only one to find the endless coverage of the Waterhouse family increasingly tedious. What next, the contents of TW's garbage?

Commenter

dhr

Date and time

May 14, 2013, 12:08PM

Made you click on the article though....

Commenter

lolwat

Date and time

May 14, 2013, 12:39PM

If you find his endless self-promotion tedious, fair enough. Without his self promotion, there'd be no media coverage. Unfortunately, the media coverage is exactly what he wants. If it's good, (rare but vaguely possible) he'll lap it up. If it's more bad publicity, he won't care - it's cheap advertising.

Commenter

Let them eat cake

Date and time

May 14, 2013, 12:50PM

dhr, I can assure you that you are not alone.

Commenter

David

Location

Sydney

Date and time

May 14, 2013, 12:50PM

Tall poppy making his money in the gambling industry. No chance he will be left alone.

Commenter

bored

Date and time

May 14, 2013, 12:50PM

Don't give them ideas

Commenter

pb

Location

sydney

Date and time

May 14, 2013, 12:58PM

He knows what wiki readers want...

Commenter

Sure its not...

Location

Cash for comment?

Date and time

May 14, 2013, 1:04PM

Yes, soon he will have his own reality show. God help us!

Commenter

Catherine

Date and time

May 14, 2013, 1:06PM

God is this uber-annoying Waterhouse guy ever going to go away?? Anyone that places bets with him is a mug and is only contributing to his ever-present persona on every channel in the universe. Uggh.

Commenter

luke

Date and time

May 14, 2013, 1:08PM

I think we already have the garbage - agree though, they hold little interest other than perceptions of how they conduct their business.